The Winds of Autumn

by Jim R. Woolard

  Abner Johnson barged out of the night, stumbled and plopped on the ground hard enough to bounce. At a raised brow from Wentsell, he lifted a whiskey jug from beside a bulging thigh and fisted it across the fire. Wentsell declined and routed the brown jug to a suddenly smiling Lem.

  “Thank yuh, Abner,” Lem said. “Yuh have brought joy ta a desperate soul.”

  Wentsell’s resulting laugh came from deep in the throat. “Lem may have somethin’ at that, Johnson. The least harmful thing for yuh when we leaven out of here could be fetchin’ the jug and watchin’ our backtrail … if’n yuh can hear anythin’ over the thrashin’ of your own feet.”

  Good-natured Abner took no offense at Wentsell’s funning him. His blue eyes sparkled and his coarse gray beard flounced on his well-muscled chest as he laughed right along with us. Abner was far past his early years, yet accorded the younger Wentsell unquestioned respect. I sensed the same was true with most backwoodsers and rivermen however they encountered Tice Wentsell.

  Though not intending to, Abner remained the butt of the joke through the early part of the meal. Taking notice of the leftover hoecake and beef jerk frying in bear’s oil atop the flames, he unbuttoned his loose doeskin shirt and trotted forth a crusted slab of deer meat. A rank odor seeped from the open seam of his shirt and watered eyes halfway round the fire, Lem’s most noticeably since he was seated closest to the giant boatman.

  “Abner,” Lem said, unpatched eye appraising the rotting contents of Johnson’s hairy paw, “I ain’t never before refused vittles, ’specially when a fellow sincerely wants ta enrich the pot. But I’m believin’, liken never before, some meat been dead too long ta be granted lodgin’ behind my teeth. That there portion yuh can hoard for your ownself, providin’ yuh gnaw on it over yonder … well over yonder, if’n yuh please.”

  Abner’s rumbling snort of a laugh shook his fat paunch.

  He gave Lem a powerful swat on the shoulder. “Fine with me, Shakett. I’ll gum her down by my lonesome seein’ as how she don’t smell no worse’n me yet.”

  He proceeded to do as he said without moving. He basted the blackened lump with raw whiskey and ate in a fit of slobbery chewing. The lip-smacking, finger-licking completion of his private supper was appreciated even by Wentsell, who was farthest from him. Needless to say, we missed neither the sight nor smell of Abner’s spurned contribution.

  Wentsell permitted himself a single sip of Monongahela after finishing his fair share from the frying pan; then his cross-eyes honed in on Lem with a pointed question. “How much of our misbegotten clash with the Redsticks did yuh oversee from Baker Ridge?”

  “More’n we cared for,” Lem answered. “It was a miserably long afternoon ’ceptin’ for these here lads’ sister Sarah survivin’ the whole fracas, an’ your gettin’ out alive.”

  “I wondered who their decoy was.” Wentsell looked Blake and me square in the face. “Others likely won’t accept it as such, but I daresay she’d no druthers in what she done.”

  Blake’s backbone eased a little at Wentsell’s forgiving of Sarah’s part in the ambush. “Had a pistol on her the whole of it, she did.”

  Wentsell nodded and lighted a small, hand-carved pipe with a burning twig. It hadn’t occurred to me during the excitement and bloody aftermath of the skirmish at the river, but he was right how some borderers were sure to condemn Sarah and hold it against her forever. More than a few had been hated out in the past for offenses far less severe than aiding the Injuns in the killing of their own kind. Whether Sarah had done so under force of arms would count for naught with the rabble-rousers, those settlers who feared the Shawnee the most. They unwittingly spread vicious and alarming lies, never concerning themselves with the truth fulness or falsehood of what passed from their tongues. Blake and I thus had a double charge: rescue Sarah from Three Feathers and Meek, and then, once we had her safely back on Tygart’s Creek, scrape as much of the mud as we could from her name. It was a challenge formidable enough to tire a man on a full belly.

  “Anyone else besides your Sarah escape the scalpin’ knife?”

  “Best we could tell, five boatmen, one of ’em the captain on the horse ship,” Blake answered.

  Wentsell scratched his cheek with the stem of his pipe. “Captain? Who you mean was captain?”

  “That slender dandy in the feathered hat what signaled the Kentuckies into the far bank,” Lem responded.

  “That weren’t no captain,” Wentsell said. “That be Judge Ferrenden’s daughter, Hannah.”

  Caught in mid-swallow, Lem spat a mouthful of whiskey into the fire where the driblets flared bright yellow. He backhanded his wet chin. “What yuh say, Tice?” he said, brows knitting in the center. “You’re funnin’ again, ain’t yuh now?”

  Wentsell knocked dottle from his pipe into a palm and scattered it over the dying flames. We were all ears. “Naw, I ain’t. I wish I were. Hannah Ferrenden be the only reason I won’t partake of Limestone’s hospitality on the morrow.”

  “That explains everything,” I stuck in, surprised I’d stated my thought aloud.

  All eyes turned my way. “What yuh mean, him bein’ a woman explains everythin’? Now yuh sounds looney as Tice,” Lem ranted, still not sure Wentsell wasn’t slyly teasing him to exasperation.

  “Settle yourself an’ hear him out,” Wentsell suggested firmly.

  I felt my neck redden, but my backwardness didn’t harness my tongue in the least. I directed my talk at Lem and Blake. “’Member how the mate doffed his tricorn ta his toes when agreein’ ta change course, liken yuh would when goin’ along with a headstrong woman instead of a ship’s captain. How about when they drug him—her— out of the river an’ the Shawnee took ta hootin’ and cat-callin’ at Stick Injun. Wasn’t no man he couldn’t handle alone, it was a female. An’ how about when she and Sarah took ta wrestlin’ with each other, grabbin’ hair an’ kickin’. Not just children fight like that, women do when they’re scratchin’ mad.”

  Blake expressed his agreement right off, but Lem proved his usual gruff, obstinate self. “How come yuh had all them ganders at his face an’ couldn’t tell if’n he was a woman?

  How about that?”

  “I never once saw her face full-bore,” I said. “She had that macaroni hat on. Then when they pulled her from the water, her back was always ta my glass. Same when she fought with Sarah. I never did see nothin’ ’ceptin’ her backside.”

  Wentsell drove the final peg home. “Ain’t no cuttin’ across it Lem. He’s right, an’ Abner was with me an’ he’ll speak the same. Hard ta believe, ain’t it.”

  Lem quickly helped himself to a longish pull on the brown jug. “Whole damn Ohio Valley’s bound for ruination what with that fool woman overreachin’ herself—wearin’ breeches, bossin’ Kentuckies, gettin’ men killed in bunches. Next, she’ll appoint herself high sheriff an’ lock away all the whiskey. ’Nuff ta have a man hidin’ from his ownself for fear he’ll be her next laughingstock an’ hafta suffer through it sober’n a judge ’fore she leads him off at the end of a bull tether. By God, I’ll snatch me a Shawnee bride first an’ swear off’n everythin’ with white skin. I won’t shame my dear paw in the grave, nosiree, no way, nohow.”

  At that juncture Lem paused for breath before his lungs burst, and Wentsell couldn’t resist a further insult to his offended pride. “Glad yuh don’t feel too strongly one way ta other ’bout her. Thataway, yuh won’t mind lendin’ a hand in freein’ her, will yuh now.”

  The contrast between Lem’s gaping mouth and Wentsell’s intent gaze was a wondrous sight to behold, and we watchers rent the night with gales of laughter, Abner pounding the ground with both fists in glee. I myself always remembered it as the only occasion upon which Lem was ever rendered flat speechless. His only recourse was to fume and fuss, then seek a dram of solace from the jug.

  As I should have anticipated, before the laughter subsided entirely, Blake’s never-ending concern for Sarah and her predicament came to the fore and he turned our thin
king to more serious considerations. “Yuh plan on crossin’ the Ohio after them Shawnee I take it, Mr. Wentsell.”

  Wentsell hawked and spat into the dying embers. “Call me Tice, young fella. Don’t age me afore my time. Yeh, liken your sister, there ain’t no druthers for me neither.”

  “How that be?” a frowning, fast-recovering Lem inquired. “Yuh sweet on her?’’

  Wentsell ignored Lem’s joshing, his mood at once solemn and resolute. “’Tain’t nothin’ touchin’ on her. It’s her paw, the judge, I dasn’t fail. He’s a partner with General Putnam at Marietta in land dealin’s along the Muskingum, an’ they’re thicker’n fleas on a swimmin’ dog’s nose. Those two gentlemen have placed a stack of gold coin in my poke more’n once for past endeavors, an’ neither would take kindly ta my not pursuin’ even the slimmest chance that gal could be spared undue grief.”

  “If’n he be such a dotin’ paw, how come she ta be sailin’ the Ohio in the middle of Injun country?” Lem persisted.

  “The judge was felled by the ague at Fort Pitt. She came aboard at the last minute, supposedly on his orders ta insure his cargo reached Limestone. She buffaloed Chard Langston, the middle boat mate, into believin’ her tale an’ we was off in the prime of night on a risin’ river. Chard was sweet on her an’ turned buffoon whenever that gal showed herself, or so it seemed. He wouldn’t hear of waitin’ for meta check with the judge … as if’n another hour’s delay might jeopardize our sailin’ atall.”

  Lem knew Wentsell well enough to broach touchy questions. “He always give in ta her whims?”

  Wentsell refilled his pipe from a leathern pouch tucked in the wallet of his frock, lighted it as before and drew smoke in short puffs, burning tobacco winking in the dark. “Don’t liken ta stain a man in his absence, but Chard was helpless up agin her. Oh, he’d protest an’ holler, then let her have her way. An’ today a lot of good men lost their lives because of it.”

  “All the blame don’t belong on his head, nor the woman’s,” Blake informed him. “Everythin’ else aside, they decided ta help one of their own in the worst of troubles. Mr. Went—Tice that weren’t no chance ambush yuh escaped by the grace of the Lord this afternoon. Tell him, Lem, tell him who held the pistol on Sarah.”

  The old sergeant savored Wentsell’s curious stare with the relish of the born storyteller. “Won’t really surprise yuh none. It was the King’s traitor, Simon Meek.”

  “Good God Almighty,” Wentsell roared. “He’s bad as them Girty brothers, Matthew Elliott and McKee. He sold his uncle ta the Wyandot for a keg of rum an’ helped burn him at the post. ’Tain’t nothin’ he won’t do for his own gain.”

  “An’ guess who brung the bait for the trap?” Lem prodded, tattooed jaw quivering with excitement.

  “Dunno. But yuh best tell straight out afore I get riled an’ stick a hole in yuh where it’ll hurt the most.”

  Lern realized he’d tweaked a two-legged catamount long enough. “It were an ol’ enemy of yourn: Three Feathers hisself.”

  A lopsided grin briefly wrinkled the corners ofWentsell’s mouth. He leaned forward at the waist. His dark, brilliant eyes bored into us. “I’ve prayed day an’ night for another try at that Shawnee bastard. It’ll be most pleasurable stealin’ the judge’s daughter an’ your Sarah back from him. Turnabout’s fair play, right, lads?”

  Blake, of course, jumped on Wentsell’s wagon with both feet. “It surely be. I believe with yuh along even Lem might be tempted ta cross the Ohio with us.”

  “Now hold your horses,” Lem objected. “Wasn’t we bound for Limestone ta gather some reinforcements? Bein’ dead has a lot ta do with bein’ hasty! ’Nother thing we best bear in mind, you pledged your oath ta Captain Jacobs’ militia. Yuh miss the muster, they’ll likely declare yuh a deserter.’’

  “Sarah comes first,” Blake decided. “They’ll hafta sail without me. I’ll catch them at Fort Washington.”

  Wentsell in turn sided with Blake. “’Tain’t no time ta go an’ come back. Them Injuns pack off any cargo from the Kentuckies?”

  “Powder, rum, barreled salt pork,” Lem admitted, “strung on their own horses ’fore they burned the boats at dark.”

  Lips pursed, Wentsell tapped a thumbnail with the bowl of his pipe. “They’ll move off a ways an’ camp for the night, burn and torture a prisoner or two. In the mornin’ Three Feathers’ll lay the lash on ’em an’ they’ll shoot north up the valley of the Scioto. If’n we’re ta come up on ’em anytime soon, we need ford the Ohio yet tonight. They won’t be too watchful durin’ the next few hours. At daylight, they might leave a scout watchin’ the river for pursuit. They know full well word of their attack will be at Limestone afore dawn.”

  Fording the flooding Ohio with the moon down held no appeal for Lem, a poor swimmer. “These horses can’t handle such a current alone, Tice. We’ll need a raft or somethin’ for christsake.”

  “There’s a canoe hidden in the big windfall near the mouth of Tygart’s Creek,” Tice said. “Yuh, me an’ the brothers will scrounge her out an’ make our crossin’ strong an’ quick after midnight. We can’t wait for daybreak, an’ it wouldn’t be any easier then. It rained on us three straight days an’ that river can rise ten, twelve feet every full sweep of the clock.”

  “What ’bout the horses an’ Abner?” Lem asked.

  “Two risky for good horseflesh, an’ Abner’d overload us. I’ll get him started for Limestone with the animals. I told the judge’s boatmen I’d send Abner if’n there was any reason ta fetch them back here. We free those women, any help atall reachin’ Limestone with our hair intact might be a godsend. Stirrin’ a hornet’s nest sometimes gets a body stung good and proper, don’t it now?”

  Wentsell knocked his pipe empty, dropped it into his shot pouch and swept to his feet. “Yuh three repack the vittles an’ gear an’ head yourselves for Tygart’s Creek. I’ll see Johnson down the path a piece with your horses an’ join yuh ’fore the moon peters out. Let’s make tracks, Abner.”

  The ungainly Johnson scrambled upright and followed on Went-sell’s heels. Talking in his soft voice, Wentsell un hobbled the horses and tied them in line with the bay in the lead. Abner handed Wentsell his flintlock, and they took out from the grove at a brisk pace, the bulky boatman already hurrying to keep up.

  “Appointed hisself colonel ’thout no never-yuh-mind,” Blake said in the direction of their departure.

  Brother’s open resentment snapped Lem’s head around. “Sit easy, lads. We’re in need of an understandin’ twixt the three of us here an’ now if’n we’re ta trail with Tice Wentsell.”

  Blake straightened and his hackles rose. “He knows the country north of the Ohio well as yuh allow he does?”

  Lem poked at the embers of the supper fire with a fat stick. In the faint light his good eye had that steely glint it acquired whenever the old sergeant brooked no backtalk. “Yer good, Blake Tyler, better’n most. Yuh learn fast, yuh got a fine sightin’ eye, yuh don’t forget your mistakes. I’ll grant yuh all that.”

  He aimed the smoking stick at Blake’s face. “But yuh ain’t Tice Wentsell, not yet anyways. No one other’n white renegades an’ the crown’s traitors have spent more time north of that there river. Tice not only knows the lay of the land, he knows what paths them Shawnee favor, where they’ll likely camp, how they’ll guard prisoners overnight, damn near ’fore they will. He’s spent years traipsin’ through the heart of their lair.”

  Lem let the silent Blake ponder a mite, then flipped his stick into the embers. “But that ain’t what makes Tice Wentsell different from other backwoodsers. Listen close now. He’s as dangerous as the Shawnee themselves, maybe more so. He don’t rightly give a hoot how he kills ’em, long as he does in his share of ’em. Whatever they’ve done to us’ens, he’s done ta them, likely worse. He bragged oncet nothin’ tastes finer ta him than a Shawnee heart fresh cut from the chest. An’ he damn well meant that boast, rum or no rum.

  “But that ain’t the half o
f it. He’s also the cleverest soul I’ve ever met, which makes him even more dangerous ta his enemies, red- an’ white-fleshed. When yuh believes yuh gots him dead in your sights an’ there’s no trick left in his possible sack, somehow he’ll turn the tables on yuh. Them McDowd boys learned such at Brown’s Landing one wintry night. There they be, four of ’em with rifles at full cock an’ Tice smack agin the tavern wall alongside the hearth, plain as the end of your thumb in the firelight. Them McDowds knowed they had him for certain. Only five paces separated them from Tice, an’ the crowd, drunken hellions all, was behind the brothers, fillin’ the room from one side ta other.”

  Lem’s head shook in disbelief at his own yarn. “But ol’ Tice never blinked an eye, never showed sweat. Real careful like he reached into his sack ’an pulled free a palm full of Spanish doubloons. ‘Here, boys. This be what you’re after, ain’t it,’ he says with his crooked smile, flashin’ them coins in the glow of the hearth. I’ll tell yuh, it was a sight, the flames maken them gold pieces look like they was afire in his hand. But them McDowds was too smart for him this time. They stood their ground like tall oaks, grinnin’ right back at him. Tabor, the oldest, he said, ’Twon’t sail tonight. We’ll have your blood an’ your fortune, that’s all there be ta it.’”

  Lem paused, nipped from the jug. “An’ then, just when it seemed the most desperate, Tice give ’em another smile an’ with a sudden flip of the wrist scattered them gold pieces into the legs of the crowd. Oh, those McDowds hung fire a shade, but their greed done ’em in. They knowed they was poor forever lessen they moved fast, an’ they dove into the growin’ pile behind ’em. Meanwhile, ol’ Tice, he stepped ta his table in the corner for his rifle, eyes never leavin’ that sea of arses an’ elbows starin’ at him from the other end of the room. He waited for a moment of quiet amidst all the gruntin’, shovin’ and swearin’. It was then he slowly cocked his weapon, an’ just liken us’ens earlier, every heart in the tavern skipped a beat or three. ‘I’ll have my gold back, Tabor, or your life in place of it.”